Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Stability, jobs and economic growth—apparently, not very sexy words but these are the things I campaigned on and helped me to be re-elected in July 2016. By working hard, I am delivering in the Pilbara, with a new St John Ambulance Port Hedland building, the realignment of the Great Northern Highway and the North West Coastal Highway, upgrading of the Marble Bar Road and improved mobile reception with many new mobile towers—to name but a few.

As I have said before in this place, the Pilbara is an economic heartland for Australia. While the mining and resources industries is, of course, vitally important to Australia's and the region's sustainability, the Pilbara has a diversified economy, including the arts, tourism and hospitality industries, and can be so much more. The proposed Nat's' $5 mining tax in WA is akin to the failed federal Labor government's mining tax. Both would impact jobs locally in Durack and have a detrimental impact on future mining projects across Australia.

WA Liberals, we get the bush; WA Liberals, we get jobs—it is in our blood. But there are also many social issues in the region, and only by all three tiers of government working together will we actually be able to achieve some outcomes. That is why I am 100 per cent behind the state Liberal candidate for the Pilbara, Mark Alchin, and I now look forward to working with him to make the Pilbara a better place for all.